Hello Vallejo

Wow, change is different
For those of you who don't know what my school or "my" ship looks like, here are some interesting pictures, I was in a creative mood when I took them so I had some fun.

Bridges over the Carquinez straights which runs parallel to my school. 3$ to drive a across it, what fun. What year was this picture taken in? I'll give you a hint it is still that year.

These are various places on campus, the red buildings in the far back are the upper residence hall where I lived this year, the fire alarm seemed to go off frequently there. the other buildings are cool and indisdinguisble so it would be too hard to explain to you what they are.
In the second picture you see somemooring lines, polypropelyne

Here you can see the bulwark by the transom of the ship, the boathouse, the oldest building on campus is in the background.

Here you see the carquinez straights and the high winds that make it popular for sailing and golfing, are evident by the white caps on the water.

These are palm trees

This is a watertight doorframe (the door is latched open) , on the maindeck facing aft, it is good to pick you feet up a little more than normal when you choose to exit through one of these, if you don't you might exit on your face.

The flag on the fantial, with Mayor Island in the background.

Fire hose

Bye bye SLO

Goodbye SlO
This summer has been a wonderful time, thanks for you beauty and fun.
Thank to all the people who I was blessed to be with here in SLO.
Thanks to my church family I look forward to eternity with eager expectation and hope.


Bye bye grafitti dude on the wall















Bye Bye pappas girl



Bye bear















Bye bye streets and your echoing clang, and empty roar.

Bye bye beatiful valleys and hills and goodbye friends and buddies see you soon and see you forever

Fun with pictures

I never have used photo editing programs because I never really use digital cameras, but anyways the programs are fun. Although they help you fix your mistakes so much It's kinda cheating.

This picture is crazy cool, I used some weird affect and it just did this, it's kinda rad. look at Andrews freckles.

This one is just a black and white with a lot of contrast

I seemed to have gained some wieght in this picture. Shucks that isn't ten pounds, thats gotta be more.

Once upon a time some dude went camping and this is what happened

This is pozo, every morning this valley filled up with fog, it was awesome, it looked like a lake, kinda.




So me and my fellow cohorts in christianity, Andrew, Brandon, and Ben Collins, went camping this weekend. We went to Pozo which is outside of the lopez lake area and it extends up towards north county, you can drive thorough it into Santa Margarita. The roads are awesome fun for driving on, and their are exactly ten creek crossings on the way in. We left on thursday afternoon after Brandon and I got off work and then we came back on saturday morning after a breakfast of honey nut cheiros (how do you spell that) and beef jerky. Friday we went to big falls which is a happening place because it has a pool that is at least 15 ft deep that you can jump off of cliffs into. For Nathan i will use the word totaly radical when speaking of this killer drainage ditch that we skated, mostly me though cause my other friends are so into it as me. It was rad, i want to go skate it again but it is too far away. oh and Andrew shot a rat, I did to, but it was the same one, see we hung it from a tree and shot it to pieces with .22's for about 2 hrs.



I am not a mexican revolutionary, i am not a mexican revolutionary, i am not a mexican revolutionary, nope, but i kinda look like one

This is a waterfall near big falls, I was trying to catch some of the water droplets in my picture. I got some of them, but taking pictures into the sun is hard

This is the cliff we jumped off into this incredibly deep pool at big falls. This pool is nearly 20 feet deep. It was a good little jump. In this picture I am saying to Brandon "you shall surely perish if you shoot me with that paintball gun" no actually I didn't say that but oh well. It looks like i am in a jungle, pozo is like the rainforest of SLO town, very dense foilage. Good for adventures too.

This ditch was awesome and totally radical, I never have had so much fun skateboarding, I had to stop within five minutes so I would not skate it all afternoon. It felt just like a wave. I love skateboarding because it feels like surfing, and I love surfing because it feels natural and makes me forget all of life and live in the few moments that I am riding the wave.

This is our friday night fire at it's greatest height.

Overall a wonderful camping trip, full of boyish dreams and adventures. We a great time and we were safe thanks to God. There are not many critters up there, we left our trash out and open ant night and nobody bothered it. Although here is Andrews rat. He was a dirty little bugger. But made a great target.

Boat building and a b-e-a-u-tiful day

These are some pictures of the plywood boat I have been building this summer. It is a 15ft plywood dinghy. Mostly only for rowing and also probably a small outboard for scaring fish. right now it is at the resin and fiberglass stage, here you see me and my coworker Andrew Smith filling the cracks with resin.

And the beatiful day

I went up on Islay hill this afternoonish evenish, for short walk. I thouroughly enjoyed it, because it was still warm but the wind was cool, and the lighting was perfect for fooling around with some picture taking. A solitary walk was just the thing I needed to do, to have a word with my creator alone in a such a quiet and beautiful place as San Luis. We are blessed to live here in this wonderful place.

Testing versus Tempting

I was reading The Good Book the other day, in fact it was tuesday I believe, just after my softball game. I deicided to take a look a the orginal straight shooter James. The book of James is one of the most dead on all truth no mercy books in the bible. I came across this passage

"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will recieve the crown of life, which God has promised those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, an he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has fully concieved gives birth to sin, and sin fully grown brings forth death." James 1:12-15

And later on in chapter two we come across this passage in verse 21 "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Issac upon the altar?"

For some reason I had this inspiration to go and cross reference this passage back to Gensis where Abraham lays his one and only son upon an altar and is about to kill him because God told him to.

"After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "Take your son, your only son Issac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountians of which I shall tell you."

Genesis 22:1-2

There are several reactions i have after reading this passage. WHAT?!!!! WHY!!!? and blantly NO!! I could not do what Abraham does as he willingly with a true servants attitude travels to a distant land and nearly kills his son to prove that he would obey God. This shows his ultimate devotion to God because Issac was his inheritance which was promised to Abraham by God. God said to him that his decsendants would he numerous like the stars of the sky or the sand of the beach. And all of this was to be through his one and only son Issac, whom God gave to him after he and his wife were way past age. Whom now God was telling him to kill. Abraham could have easily said no God, this is murder, or what about my inheritance. But rather he chose to have faith, awesome faith. Wow I wish I could be like him, and trust God this much when my circumstances are foul, hardly foul compared to this though. But known of this was my piont.

My point is that in James he says that God does not tempt us but in Gensis it says God tested... so are tempted and tested two different things. I think that they might be, but to me they seem the same. A decision to make, right or wrong, but in one situation it is God setting up this circumstances and in the other it is merely the result of our human nature, both what it is now and what it was with Adam and Eve. So my question still is what is the difference between tempted and tested. I have been thinking about it for several days and I have yet to figure it out. I am in no way questioning God or the validity of his word, i am merely trying to understand it.

Oh and just to make this post longer Jame chapter 3 is a good chapter to read and very difficult to do